andypaul
7th July 2007, 16:30
I thought i would ask and see what set up people use. As communcation between uk and phill can be costly and the quality vary a lot.
In our household we have a number of laptops, nokia e phones and in the past a pda we used to communicated with phill.
We have a small flat so having dedicated pc workstation would take up to much room and due to the amount of time in the past and now my wife uses the pc to chat it is far more convient to use portable devices. The wife still uses skype for long conversations using the laptop and handset, but recently we have moved away from using the laptops.
The newer phones which allow both basic web browsing, messagning and voip via wlan have been a godsend. It now means we can have a permantly on connection between us and phill. Which costs the family in phill nothing to cost ( they have smartbro broandband connection which we pay for far cheaper than the phone bills we had at first)
On the phones we use truphone while the pill end use googletalk to ring up the Wife when they see her online, the quality of this has been very good.
We use for messagning either hier (only msn) while out if we need to be in close contact, im+ and recently EQO mobile.
Hier was free to download but costs as it uses gprs, im+ will use gprs or wlan and we have found it very reliable to just leave on phone thoughout the day in the flat connected to our wlan.
Eqo i have started to use but its a little experimental at the moment and sometimes its impossible to log into the server, but can be used on gprs and wlan and can log into multiple accounts even say two msn and two yahho etc.
I recently saw they had upgraded the service which i will be lookng into and are now offering voip so will have to see how that works.
We are looking once this set of e phones contracts are up and we replace of sending them to phill although need to sort out a good wirless router on the service they have or seeing how much the 3g hspda service in phill costs. As i use here and regularly get 3.6mps in and around london:xxgrinning--00xx3:
Which is more than enough for what we would need and would mean they don't need to take the laptop out of a locked cupboard connect everything just to make a call, email or chat online.
I would defintely suggest to those in long distance relationships or once the wife is over to look into more portable devices as otherwise your chained to your pc for huge chunks of the day. Which for those who are deskbound at work all day must be a living hell. Also not very good for the health. Looing allday at a phone or small device would not be to good on the eyes, but if its to quickly read messages tap off a quick reply (in a more sms style) its far healthier imo.
My wife can now chat on yahho,msn,gtalk, among others check her emails and quickly browse web all from her phone which means she can roam around the house as needed even go out in the garden.
The cost our end was minimal phone free on contract, broadband allready being used and the software didn't cost much all free apart from im+. Infact the saving to both electricty bill (phones generally use far less power than laptops and particularly desktops) and in phone bills. Yes the phones use their battries at a faster rate and you should keep the phone away from you as much as you should with any 2.4ghz device. But over a year i think we will save a decent ie worthwhile amount on our elec bill.
In our household we have a number of laptops, nokia e phones and in the past a pda we used to communicated with phill.
We have a small flat so having dedicated pc workstation would take up to much room and due to the amount of time in the past and now my wife uses the pc to chat it is far more convient to use portable devices. The wife still uses skype for long conversations using the laptop and handset, but recently we have moved away from using the laptops.
The newer phones which allow both basic web browsing, messagning and voip via wlan have been a godsend. It now means we can have a permantly on connection between us and phill. Which costs the family in phill nothing to cost ( they have smartbro broandband connection which we pay for far cheaper than the phone bills we had at first)
On the phones we use truphone while the pill end use googletalk to ring up the Wife when they see her online, the quality of this has been very good.
We use for messagning either hier (only msn) while out if we need to be in close contact, im+ and recently EQO mobile.
Hier was free to download but costs as it uses gprs, im+ will use gprs or wlan and we have found it very reliable to just leave on phone thoughout the day in the flat connected to our wlan.
Eqo i have started to use but its a little experimental at the moment and sometimes its impossible to log into the server, but can be used on gprs and wlan and can log into multiple accounts even say two msn and two yahho etc.
I recently saw they had upgraded the service which i will be lookng into and are now offering voip so will have to see how that works.
We are looking once this set of e phones contracts are up and we replace of sending them to phill although need to sort out a good wirless router on the service they have or seeing how much the 3g hspda service in phill costs. As i use here and regularly get 3.6mps in and around london:xxgrinning--00xx3:
Which is more than enough for what we would need and would mean they don't need to take the laptop out of a locked cupboard connect everything just to make a call, email or chat online.
I would defintely suggest to those in long distance relationships or once the wife is over to look into more portable devices as otherwise your chained to your pc for huge chunks of the day. Which for those who are deskbound at work all day must be a living hell. Also not very good for the health. Looing allday at a phone or small device would not be to good on the eyes, but if its to quickly read messages tap off a quick reply (in a more sms style) its far healthier imo.
My wife can now chat on yahho,msn,gtalk, among others check her emails and quickly browse web all from her phone which means she can roam around the house as needed even go out in the garden.
The cost our end was minimal phone free on contract, broadband allready being used and the software didn't cost much all free apart from im+. Infact the saving to both electricty bill (phones generally use far less power than laptops and particularly desktops) and in phone bills. Yes the phones use their battries at a faster rate and you should keep the phone away from you as much as you should with any 2.4ghz device. But over a year i think we will save a decent ie worthwhile amount on our elec bill.